


Self Reflection in a Welsh Field

by acehandles



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: amy and rory are married in this but its not important to the fic so i didnt tag it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 06:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19882786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acehandles/pseuds/acehandles
Summary: The eleventh Doctor, master of all self control, goes digging into his future and finds Thirteen. Chatting ensues.





	Self Reflection in a Welsh Field

**Author's Note:**

> If there’s anyone reading this who’s read my Good Omens fic, this isn’t the story I was talking about in that. This is a WIP from like, a year ago that I found and decided to finish while I had the motivation.  
> If you haven’t seen that fic, then this is still a WIP.  
> And to everyone: enjoy!

“Hey Doctor?” Current companion Amy Pond said, apropos of nothing, as she and her husband entered the console room.

The Doctor, busy fiddling with random bits on the TARDIS console and then checking the Gallifreyan readouts on the screen he kept swivelling round to stay in front of him, made a sort of non-committal noise and then resumed his current task of flipping the same switch back and forth, seemingly to no effect.

“Can we try meddling with our own timelines?”

The Doctor paused mid-switch, and turned on both heels to meet the gaze of the Ponds as they made their way down the last few stairs to the main console. Judging by Amy’s expression, she knew full well what the Doctor’s response was going to be. For his part, Rory just looked vaguely apologetic.

“Have you already forgotten the fun we had at Lake Silencio?” he asked, frowning at each Pond in turn before simultaneously booping both their noses and turning back to the console. “Actually,” he continued without waiting for an answer, “That did involve an awful lot of run ins with The Silence...” He flipped the briefly abandoned switch all the way to the right, back to the left, then eventually decided that perhaps in the middle really was the best place for it after all, talking all the while: “You might really have just forgotten about it. We never got to test out the long term effects of multiple silence encounters. And also the universe did get a little bit... broken. I’ll remind you -“

“We remember,” Rory cut in.

“But I’ve been thinking,” Amy said, leaning against the console beside the Doctor and leaning her head back so her hair dangled over the array of buttons, levers and switches, “That only happened because we saw you die, right? So it became one of those stuck points.”

“Fixed points,” the Doctor corrected.

“Sure.” Amy agreed. She pushed herself away from the time rotor and moved to lean against Rory instead. “So we were thinking,”

“She was thinking,” Rory interjected again, awkwardly pointing at his wife despite her having her arm round his shoulders, “I was not thinking -“

“So, we were thinking. What if we went forwards to a point that we know nothing about? Then theres no fixed points, so time wont break!”

The Doctor pouted at his companions. “You just want to see what older me looks like, don’t you?”

“Basically,” Amy admitted easily. “I wanna see what the next you looks like. I can’t imagine you looking like anything other than a weird, raggedy man.”

“Hey!” The Doctor glared at Amy, but there was no heat behind it. “I still can’t take you ahead in my own timestream. Besides,” he paused, turning away from the Ponds. ‘Besides,’ he’d almost said, ‘This is my last regeneration’. But he didn’t really feel like opening that particular can of worms.

“Besides, what?” Rory, always ready with the awkward questions, said.

“Y’know what?” he said instead, starting his usual round of the TARDIS to prepare her for flight, “We can always try right? Go a couple thousand years forwards in my own time line. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Amy bounced up away from her husband and over to the nearest railing to grab onto, grinning with excitement. Rory followed suit, though not before subtly fist-pumping in celebration.

‘So much for ‘I wasn’t thinking’,’ the Doctor thought, before pushing the last lever into position and sending the TARDIS into flight.

— — — 

A couple of thousand years in the future, the TARDIS jolted suddenly, sending her passengers falling to the floor.

“What was that?” Yaz, the first to recover, asked as she pushed herself up off the ground. She turned to offer assistance to Graham and Ryan, while the Doctor dragged herself up to the console itself to check on the TARDIS.

“Looks like someone’s rammed into us,” she said, eyes flicking over all the information, “Knocked themselves out the time vortex and into... some random field in 14th century Wales.”

“So we basically got into a time vortex car crash?” Graham, dusting imaginary dirt from his pants now that he was back on his feet, asked.

“Basically,” the Doctor agreed. “Which is weird, ‘cause its not exactly likely for that to happen. Unless...” She closed her eyes, tapping a finger to her head in thought, “Yeah, I think I remember this.”

Around her, her companions made noises of confusion.

“Its a past self,” she explained. “I vaguely remember this. Eleventh self. He didn’t have the greatest impulse control.”

“He?” Ryan repeated under his breath, looking between Yaz and his grandad, who both looked as confused as he felt.

“Well, no thing for it,” the Doctor sighed, jumping into action, “Its a fixed point now, we’ve gotta take a trip to Wales.”

— — —

The other Doctor, who had been flung with some force into a wall upon collision with his future self’s TARDIS, sat up gingerly.

“Ow,” he heard Rory’s slightly muffled voice from across the room, and a few seconds later saw the man sitting up. “What happened?”

“We just learnt an important lesson about interfering with our own futures,” The Doctor chastised, hopping up onto both feet and making his way on mostly steady feet to check where they’d ended up. He was closer to the doors, having fallen ever so slightly down a small flight of stairs, so his check involved simply yanking the door open for a quick look outside.

“We’re in Wales,” he announced. Then, after a step outside to sniff the air and waggle a finger about in the breeze, “Thirteen hundreds, or thereabouts.”

Rory and Amy, both having had foresight to grab onto something before the TARDIS even started flight and thus thrown less far by their bumpy landing, made their way down the stairs via more conventional means, and poked their heads round the police box door.

“Couldn’t’ve landed in Scotland?” Amy said mildly.

“Oh I’m sorry,” the Doctor snapped, “Next time I’m crashing the TARDIS I’ll be sure to -“

He paused suddenly in his sarcasm, holding up a finger to indicate silence to the Ponds. All three stood still for a moment, and it soon became clear why the Doctor had stopped.

“That’s -“ Rory said incredulously, as a second police box, not quite identical to their own, started to materialise with the familiar TARDIS sound.

“My future self, I guess.” the Doctor said, turning to face the slightly shorter TARDIS at it solidified a few feet away in the field. It had only been present for a few seconds when the doors swung open, and a blonde woman marched out, followed closely by another woman, who looked far more confused, and two confused looking men.

“So one of those two is your future self?” Amy whispered to her version of the Doctor, gesturing to the two men. “Not exactly what I imagined. They just look like normal blokes.”

The Doctor shook his head. None of these could be his future self - he had no more future selves to have. They all had to be companions. But, there was something odd about the blonde one.

“Alright, you big idiot,” the blonde woman said sternly, stepping up to the Doctor despite being practically a full foot shorter than him. “I get that we’ve never been so great with this whole ‘self control’ lark, but you couldn’t’ve sent a message or something in advance? Rather than barging in crashing into the TARDIS like that.”

The Doctor blinked, mouth hung open in shock. “You,” he mouthed more than said, scarcely believing what his senses were telling him. “You’re a Time Lord...”

The woman that the Doctor was trying to wrap his head around the identity of nodded, turning back to her companions and jabbing a thumb behind her to point at him. “Smart boy,” she said with a smile, “biology.”

The younger of the two men smiled at that.

“But I’m supposed to be...” The Doctor - the male one - dropped his voice slightly. “The last. This me dies, there goes the Doctor.”

The future Doctor laughed. “Bold of you to assume we can die,” she said, then stepped past her past self and towards the Ponds, both of whom had been alternating between watching the two Doctors talk and trying to guess which of the men behind the Time Lords was actually the future incarnation.

“Ponds!” she said happily, throwing her arms out and bunching the two up in an all encompassing hug, “Wonderful to see you again. Been a few thousand - technically a few billion - years on my end.”

“Doctor?” Amy said, confused. She glanced between her version of the Time Lord, and the new edition, still wrapped up in the Time Lord’s embrace. “You’re a woman?”

“Yep!” The new Doctor agreed gleefully. “Finally did well for myself in the regeneration lottery, got a bit of girl power.”

The Doctor finally broke off the hug and stepped backwards. “Alright, time for introductions.” She gestured towards her three companions, naming them in turn: “Ryan, Yaz, Graham, meet Amy, Rory, and me. Amy, Rory, me, meet Ryan, Yaz and Graham.”

The three new companions waved at the male Doctor and the Ponds.

The technically-eleventh Doctor was still having trouble wrapping his head around the concept of having further regenerations. “How on Earth do I regenerate into you?”

“You don’t,” his future self corrected, “You become angry, old, and Scottish, and then he becomes me.”

Eleven frowned. “You know full well that’s not what I’m talking about,” he said, pointedly eyeing his companions, who had apparently got over their surprise and were now starting up some nicely awkward small talk with the three new companions.

Thirteen followed Eleven’s gaze. “It’s spoilers,” she warned, “but since you’ll forget all about this meeting until you’re the one being crashed into... sure.”

As the two Time Lords walked off to discuss future events away from Amy and Rory, who on the basis of not being in the presence of their future selves would probably remember anything they heard, the companions’ conversation turned to their respective Doctors.

“So,” Amy said, “How did you meet your Doctor?”

Ryan, Yasmin and Graham shared a look, then Ryan spoke: “Uhh... she kinda just, crashed...”

Amy laughed. “Yeah, he does that. Crashed the TARDIS in my back garden when I was seven.”

“She didn’t even have the TARDIS when we first met her,” Graham said. “Fell out of the thing, right through the roof of our train.”

“She what?” Rory turned round to the two Doctors. “How are you still alive?” he yelled.

“That’s what I’m trying to work out!” The Doctor - Rory’s Doctor - shouted back.

“She never did explain that, did she?” Yasmin realised. “We were quite occupied with Tim Shaw at the time, though...”

“Tim Shaw?” Rory repeated, noting that Graham, and to a lesser extent Ryan, tensed up at the name.

“Tooth-stealing, wife-killing alien. I swear, if I ever meet that -“

“Calm down, Grandad,” Ryan interrupted, putting a hand on Graham’s shoulder. The older man relaxed at the words, giving his grandson a small smile.

Sensing the sore subject there, Amy decided to change topics. “So, where are you three from? And when, I guess.”

“Sheffield,” the three answered in unison.

“And,” Graham continued, “it’s 2018 for us... speaking of, do you know where we are?”

“Some field in the 14th century, our Doctor said,” Rory supplied. “2019, huh? Me and Amy were last on Earth in... 2011?”

“Ah,” Ryan nodded sagely, “so you guys haven’t hit the great robot uprising of 2015, yet.”

Rory and Amy both shared equally worried expressions for a moment, before Yasmin lightly slapped Ryan on the arm. “He’s joking,” she assured, “but... 2011? Wow. We were in like... year seven?”

Amy pulled a face. “You’re making me feel old.”

“Year seven in 2011, and its 2018 for you now...” Rory muttered, running the calculation in his head. “So you’re, what, nineteen, twenty?”

Ryan nodded in confirmation.

“Oh, wow,” Amy smiled. “Guess we’re not that old, after all,” she said, mock-punching Rory in the arm.

A few metres away from the companions, the Doctor had finally finished explaining to her younger self exactly how they had ended up with an extra set of regenerations, and also engaged in a brief discussion over which was superior: the jammy dodger or the custard cream. The older Doctor had the upper hand, given that the TARDIS clearly approved of her biscuit of choice, but her eleventh incarnation had never been one to bow to the tastes of others; the bow tie he continued to wear was testament of that.

“It’s really quite annoying that I’m going to just forget all of this, when I leave here,” the younger Doctor announced, with a pout. Then he shrugged, for once just accepting the laws of time as they were instead of trying to rewrite them - one could only push one’s luck in that department so many times per century - and turned back to the gathered humans. “Ponds! We’re leaving!”

Both Doctors made their way back over to the companions, and also their TARDISes. Rory and Amy said their goodbyes, before returning to their Doctor.

“Satisfied, Ponds?”

Amy gave the older Doctor one last once over. “Yes,” she decided.

“Good. Because I’m never doing that again. Also I’m not going to remember that we just did this, so please don’t mention it once the TARDIS dematerialises.”

“Right, gang,” the older Doctor had marched right up to her companions, and now had her arms round Yaz and Graham’s shoulders. She tapped Yaz’s shoulder. With a roll of her eyes, Yaz reached up to put her own arm on Ryan, who ducked down towards her to help in the effort. “Make your goodbyes; we’d best leave now before my and his combined presences make the space time continuum explode, or something.”

Given that statement, it was with a bit of a sense of urgency that the three humans disentangled themselves from the older Time Lord’s group hug, and gave Amy and Rory each a quick goodbye. The two Doctors simply smiled at each other in lieu of farewell, and then each disappeared back into their respective TARDISes, ready to go on exploring all of time and space.

In the eleventh Doctor’s TARDIS, the Time Lord had already bounded up the stairs and was flicking switches and pushing buttons with his usual gusto. Not to be left behind, Amy hopped up the stairs in pursuit, making her way over to the inexplicable typewriter on the console.

“So...” she said, as Rory brought up the rear, “When you say you’ll forget...”

The Doctor nodded distractedly, trying to keep a lever down in its rightful position. “Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey,” he explained vaguely. “Happens every time I meet a future self.”

Rory made a little ‘ah’ of recognition, seeing what Amy was getting at. “So, if you _had_ met a past self...” he said slowly, “you wouldn’t know, because past you forgot it already?”

“Yes,” the Doctor agreed, glad that for once a time travel concept was simple enough not to require one of his extended and ultimately useless metaphors. Before he could consider what exactly giving this information to the Ponds might imply, he threw one last lever down, and the TARDIS took flight.

The Doctor blinked. He was in the TARDIS. This wasn’t unusual, and his last memory was even of being in the console room, but he could’ve sworn that a few seconds ago, he’d been standing closer to the screen. He must’ve pushed it away from himself without noticing, he decided, grabbing said screen and checking that they were, indeed, still bouncing around aimlessly in the Time Vortex.

“Hey, Doctor?”

The Doctor jumped. Another incarnation of himself may have been able to play such an action off, but he’d done it with quite a bit of energy and arm flailing, so that was out of the window. “Pond!” he exclaimed, swivelling round to face Amy. “When did you get here? Are you secretly a ninja? A weeping angel?”

“No,” Amy responded, once she’d finished laughing at the Doctor’s reaction. “I was just wondering... could we mess with your timeline?”


End file.
